It’s embellishment time on the Historical Sew Fortnightly.  Time to trim, ornament, adorn, frill, bedeck, garnish, festoon, and gild to your hearts content. It’s also time for a confession.  I have trouble with embellishment.  I like the idea of embellishment, I like it when I see it on historical gowns, but when I get a gown finished, but un-trimmed, I love the silhouette and simplicity so much I just can’t make myself finish the trim and change the clarity of line. So I’m hoping to use this challenge to finally make myself trim some of the un-embellished items I have sitting around.  And I’m hoping all these pretty embellished pieces reconcile me to some historical maximalism! Like Elisabeth’s fabulous lace trimmed ruff, bejewelled headdress, and garnished partlet and dress.  I’m not usually a fan of late 16th century fashions, but the ornamentation of her dress is so perfectly balanced with the simplicity of her face, and with all the other embellishments. Late 17th century fashion can also be a bit hit-or-miss, but this frock marries …

I was planning to do inspiration posts for each Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge in the fortnight running up to the challenge, but I realise that defeats the whole purpose of posting the challenges weeks ahead and giving people time to plan for the challenge.  Instead I’ve decided to do inspiration posts when I announce the next challenge (a full 16 weeks ahead). Of course, first I have to catch up on all the challenges that are already up! So, over the next few weeks expect lots of pretty, pretty historical eye candy inspiration posts. Today I’m starting with some gorgeous stripes to get you inspired for the upcoming Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge: Stripes (#6),  mostly because I already had the post written! I think the important thing to remember about the Stripes challenge is that there are many ways to interpret stripes.  Some people have bowed out of the challenge because they don’t like stripes, but I think that’s just silly.  Stripes don’t need to be bold, big, black and white stripes.  They can be …

The first true Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge of the year (due 15 Jan) is  Bi/Tri/Quadri/Quin/Sex/Septi/Octo/Nona/Centennial  – sew something from a year ending in _13, whether it is 13AD, 1913, or 1413. Obviously people don’t throw away their clothes at the end of every year (as I write this I’m wearing a T-shirt that is at least 4 years old, and a pair of shorts that I bought at an op-shop and could be a decade old), and it’s hard to date historical garments to a precise year, so what you really want to do is make something that would be worn in 1813 (or 913, or 1613) without looking too outdated.  If your item would have been worn by someone poor, it could be quite a few years earlier, if it’s a Paris ballgown, it should be very close to the date. I’m making a dress based on a 1812 fashion plate – it’s a wool dress, so I presume it would have been worn during the winter, and would have been quite appropriate in …